What's A Blog? (Don Ward)

Most of us know, but I'm not sure all of us do.

Recently someone left a comment on one of my blog entries stating something along the lines of,

"I can't believe this is on KKTV's website. There is other important news and you spend time on this."

hmmm. I think there may be some confusion here, The piece in question was not a news item and it was not a news article. It was a blog entry. It was something I posted on the website as part of my blog, "The Written Ward"

The commenter went on to say something like, "Your news page has nothing on it" to bolster his argument that my blog entry, in his not-so-humble opinion, didn't belong on kktv.com.

Here's what I think happened. Take a look at part of the homepage at kktv.com (below). At the top there's a breaking news story, below that are the four top stories, each with a headline and a picture. You can click to read the full story for each one.

Scroll down a little more and there several more news articles. That's the main focus of kktv.com. We bring you news as soon as we get it and we update it as often as possible. KKTV.com has been chosen as the best Southern Colorado TV news website by the Colorado Broadcasters Association for each of the last three years.

The homepage has more than that though. Yes, there are ads, and there are links to the daily webcasts, information on how to follow us on facebook and twitter, and lots of other things too. Take a look at what's at the bottom of that second group of news stories on the homepage...way down in the lower right corner.

Here's a closer look.

Not to go all "Da Vinci Code" but if you click where it says, "More Headlines" you get ummmm, more headlines. You get lots and lots of them. If however, you just keep scrolling on down the homepage you get to other items. It shows you all of the latest tweets we've put on our twitter page. Then at the very, very bottom of that home page (remember - the homepage has more than just news on it) you get to this...a small section with the latest blogs.

You can see that Betty Sexton has an entry from her "Call For Action" blog, I've got one there, then Stacia Naquin has an entry listed from her "11 Fit Club" blog. There's also an entry there from Brian Bledsoe's Weather Blog.

Now, this same commenter, it turns out, also left a comment on an actual news story that he didn't like or didn't agree with. In that comment he called the news article, "A waste of another blog".

Do you see where I'm going with this? I know someone a little older who was talking once about leaving comments on a website, and he referred to what he was doing as "blogging". I think some people think that the term "blog" is just generic catch-all term for anything and everything that is posted on any website. I think some believe that a news article is a "blog", that a comment on a news article is a "blog" and so on.

If that's what someone thinks, and then they read a heading that says "latest blogs" they might well think that means those are the very latest things that have been posted to our site, period. That would admittedly be a real disappointment - if you're looking for actual news and you think that we're promoting a blog entry about a landmark in London, or the best way to get exercise as our very latest web site information, period. We are not doing that. We're just saying these are the latest entries in our various blogs.

The word "blog" is short for web log. Most of us know that, but not everyone does. Here's the dictionary definition.

On our web site we host several different blogs. Mine (the one you're reading now) is called "The Written Ward" I treat it like a newspaper column. I maintain it and add new entries to it whenever I have the time to do so. As the heading below states, I write in it, or "blog" about a little bit of everything. Usually it's not about something that I would consider news.

I think that some not only misunderstands the word "blog" but also think that the homepage is all there is to kktv.com. At the very top of the homepage there are all those buttons you can click..."find it", "home", "news", "weather" etc. Take a look.

It doesn't take an Enigma machine to figure out that if you click where it says "weather" you get weather. It doesn't take a Little Orphan Annie Decoder Ring (A Christmas Story anyone?) to figure out that if you click on "news" you get a whole page of news.

We have tiny little corner of kktv.com dedicated to our 6 different blogs. Here's a link that will get you straight to them.

They're not news articles, they never were intended to be. They're web logs by various 11 News staff members (including me). They're just a place for us to write things that are of interest to many (I know, not all) 11 News viewers who can read them if they want to. They are usually on subjects that wouldn't be a good fit on a TV newscast. Check them all out, you may find them interesting. If you don't the best idea would be not to read them.

There is plenty of news on kktv.com, click around a little and it's very easy to find..everywhere except in the blogs.

KKTV firmly believes in freedom of speech for all and we are happy to provide this forum for the community to share opinions and facts. We ask that commenters keep it clean, keep it truthful, stay on topic and be responsible. Comments left here do not necessarily represent the viewpoint of KKTV 11 News.

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Don Ward anchors KKTV 11 News at 4:30, 5:30, 6:30 and 10:00 with Dianne Derby. His broadcasting career, which began in 1988, includes earning numerous professional honors and maintaining strong ties to Colorado.